The present invention relates to preparing chocolate compositions and more particularly to incorporating water into the chocolate compositions during preparation of the compositions.
Chocolate is composed of a fatty phase, cocoa butter and optionally milk fats, containing essentially solid compounds, for example cellulose fibres, sugar crystals and dispersed proteins. In the preparation of chocolate, finely ground or refined cocoa powder is converted into a fluid suspension of sugar, cocoa and optionally milk powder in the fatty phase by the operation of conching. The water content of the chocolate is approximately 1% by weight before conching and less than 1% after this operation which produces evaporation of water. In order to obtain suitable flow properties compatible with the manufacturing stages of chocolate, care is taken to maintain the water content of the chocolate masses below 1% by weight.
There is considerable advantage in the field of confectionery/chocolate-making in increasing the heat resistance of chocolate and reducing its caloric content. Various means, noted below, have been proposed for achieving these results.
One method has consisted of incorporating water or humectants, for example glycerol, directly. When an attempt is made to manufacture chocolate or the like with a high water content (in which the water must be in a dispersed form and wherein the continuous fatty phase contains crystalline when an aqueous phase is incorporated directly, a well known phenomenon, which has yet been elucidated completely is produced in which there is a rapid set of the mass by formation of agglomerates.
According to current knowledge, the origin of the rapid and considerable increase in viscosity would be attributable to an interaction between the hydrophilic surfaces of sugar crystals and pockets of water which would form a sugar-water bonded structure. The consequence of this is that the increase in viscosity induced becomes greater as the sugar crystals dissolve in the pockets of water, which could explain the high viscosity of an emulsified aqueous sugar solution. A chocolate converted in this way is practically impossible to handle and gives a coarse and sandy sensation in the mouth.
Other methods have consisted of adding hydrated substances, foams, syrups, gels or emulsions, either oil-in-water or water-in-oil. An example of such an approach with incorporation of a water-in-oil emulsion is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,760, wherein an emulsion of an aqueous solution of a carbohydrate and a fat in the presence of an emulsifier is prepared, after which the emulsion is mixed with a tempered chocolate mass. The objective aimed at is heat resistance rather than the amount of water incorporated, which is of the order of 1 to 3%.
In another case, U.S. Pat. No. 5,468,509 describes a process for producing milk chocolate containing as much as 16% of water, according to which cocoa is first coated with cocoa butter and lecithin, an aqueous phase is prepared separately by mixing milk powder, sugar and water, and the coated cocoa is then carefully mixed with the aqueous phase and the mixture thus prepared is then tempered.